FW: [AG-TECH] Taiwan/Pragma situation

Tue May 20 10:45:57 CDT 2003

FYI The Multi-Sector Crisis Management Consortium (www.mscmc.org) is 
hosting an outreach meeting tomorrow, Wednesday, May 21, from 1 - 3 pm EDT 
at ACCESS with the focus on SARS and TOPOFF 2.  Invitation below

The MSCMC outreach meeting briefing is always AG enabled.  Although 
attendance is normally by membership invitation only, because of the SARS 
situtation, and other requests that the MSCMC has received from SARS 
affected regions to connect them with experts, this MSCMC SARS briefing 
will be open to the global AG communities. This may be a small start - a 
good way to link up an ad hoc collaborative network from the affected 
communities via the MSCMC with members and experts here.

Janet

703 248-0102

****************************************************
Multi-Sector Crisis Management Consortium Outreach Meeting

Wednesday, May 21, 2003 (1:00 - 3:00 PM eastern)
Reception Immediately following 3:00 - 5:00 PM

Please RSVP to: dcadmin at ncsa.uiuc.edu

Alliance Center for Collaboration, Science, and Software (ACCESS)
Ballston Metro Center Tower
Suite 800
Arlington, VA 22205
703-248-0072

Agenda for Wednesday, May 21, 2003
1:00 - 3:00 PM (eastern time)
Reception Immediately following 3:00 - 5:00 PM

1:00 -1:15 PM

Introductions and Welcome
Syed Qadir, MSCMC Chair
Executive Director, National Response Center
http://www.nrc.uscg.mil

Janet Thot-Thompson,
MSCMC Executive Director
www.mscmc.org
Associate Director, NCSA ACCESS
http://www.accesscenterdc.org

1:15 - 2:15 PM

Presentation: SARS and TOPOFF 2: The Practice, Fear, and Effectiveness of 
Quarantine

Stephen Prior, Ph.D.
Director, National Security Health Policy Center (NSHPC)
Potomac Institute for Policy Studies

 >From May 12 - 16, top officials from the Department of Homeland Security 
and the Department of State, together with those from Federal, State, local 
and Canadian agencies, are participating in TOPOFF 2, the second of two 
Congressionally-mandated exercises that simulate Weapons of Mass 
Destruction (WMD) attacks on the United States. Part of the TOPOFF 2 
exercise included a biological weapons attack on Chicago. Stephen Prior 
will describe the basis for the simulated attack and discuss what responses 
were considered and implemented, including treatments and quarantine.

Prior will also examine various countries' use of quarantine in response to 
the recent outbreak of Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS). He will 
discuss public perception of and response to quarantine, focusing on such 
issues as mandatory versus voluntary quarantine.

Biosketch: Stephen David Prior, Ph.D.

Dr. Prior joined the Potomac Institute For Policy Studies in 2000 as the 
Research Director of the Institute's National Security Health Policy Center 
(NSHPC). He is a life scientist with qualifications in biochemistry, 
microbiology, and microbial physiology, and over 18 years research 
experience in a wide range of academic, corporate, and multinational 
environments. He is an acknowledged leader in the field of defense against 
the threat posed by biological weapons (BW) and bioterrorism (BT) who, 
since 1986, has advised and worked closely with government and commercial 
defense staffs world-wide to develop integrated strategies of medical 
countermeasures for BW defense. Dr. Prior has wide experience in the 
defense industry, including appointments with the U.S. Department of 
Defense, the UK Ministry of Defence and NATO, and has presented 
internationally on BW/BT defense.

The experience gained by Dr. Prior in medical and scientific issues during 
and following the Persian Gulf War (1991) is currently being applied to the 
policy issues that surround the threats posed to the United States by 
bioterrorism and other disease-related problems. His direct-experience of 
analyzing threats and developing novel solutions has enabled him to 
establish the NSHPC at the forefront of current discussions and debates on 
health and national security. The initial results of the work of NSHPC have 
found a place in both U.S. and UK debates about the policy issues 
surrounding countermeasures for the increasing threat from BW/BT, and 
current research encompasses public health law and socio-economic concerns. 
The policy work that NSHPC is pursuing continues to elicit requests from 
government, non-government, academic and public bodies for study papers.

In 2001, as a result of the concerns over the possible release of BW agents 
in a bioterrorist attack on the U.S., Dr. Prior was invited to work with 
various U.S.-Government agencies and non-Government organizations on the 
"National Strategy For Homeland Security" and the creation of the Office of 
Homeland Security. Recent publications by Dr. Prior include Terrorism and 
Medical Responses: U.S. Lessons and Policy Implications (ISBN 
1-57105-228-3) and What Is To Be Done? Emerging Perspectives on Public 
Responses to Bioterrorism (ISBN 0-9725956-1-9). In addition he contributes 
widely to published articles, radio and television. Dr. Prior was recently 
appointed the Field Director for the Critical Incident Analysis Group 
(CIAG) a University of Virginia-based analysis group.

Before joining the Institute, Dr. Prior was the first President and CEO of 
DynPort, a limited liability company based in Reston, VA, which the DOD 
selected as the Prime Systems Contractor for its Joint Vaccine Acquisition 
Program (JVAP). Under this ten-year, $500 million contract, the company was 
responsible for preclinical research, clinical trial management, bulk 
manufacturing, and storage and distribution of a range of vaccine and 
related products to counter biological weapon threats.

 >From 1990-1996, Dr. Prior was a Company Director at Porton International, 
a UK/U.S. biotechnology company that focused on the development of medical 
products, principally vaccines, for the military and civilian defense 
markets. Dr. Prior was responsible for providing expert advice to MoD, DoD 
and NATO, and the management of the relationship with the UK governments' 
Centre for Applied Microbiology and Research (CAMR). While at Porton 
International, Dr. Prior served as a UK/US advisor on defense policy for 
armed forces resulting in revised strategies for Nuclear, Biological and 
Chemical (NBC) defense and provision of appropriate materials for use 
during the Persian Gulf Conflict.

Dr Prior trained in the United Kingdom and received his Ph.D. from the 
University of Warwick in 1986. He holds degrees in Microbiology and Applied 
Biology.

2:15 - 2:45 Question and Answer Session

2:45 - 3:00 Closing Remarks

3:00 - 5:00 PM Reception
---------------------------------------
Technical Information
NCSA AccessGrid Venue: Optiverse
NCSA AccessGrid Schedule: http://agschedule.ncsa.uiuc.edu/
AccessGrid www site: http://www.mcs.anl.gov/fl/accessgrid
Teleconference numbers: 1-877-607-8976 (toll free); 1-217-244-7526 (UIUC local)
ACCESS Polycom Bridge server: 205.253.57.82 (Please mute local mic once
joined--image dictated by voice activation.)
ACCESS contact: Tom Coffin (tcoffin at ncsa.uiuc.edu; 703-248-0105)
ACCESS DPPT3 server: ball-ftp.ncsa.uiuc.edu
Slide repository: http://www.accesscenterdc.org/PPT/03052/mscmc

*********************************************************************

At 09:33 AM 5/19/2003 -0500, Terry Disz wrote:
>Hello all,
>
>An update on trhe Taiwan PRAGMA situation - We had a teleconference on
>Saturday evening summed up as follows by Jim Miller of inSORS.
>
>-----------------------------------------------------------------------
>The group from Taiwan and Pragma from SDSC conferenced with Futures Lab
>group and Jim from inSORS on Saturday to review some technical AG2.0
>questions along with other logistics for implementation of AccessGrid
>network within 3 Taiwan hospitals.
>
>Once successful, they hope to expand to 7 area hospitals.
>
>They are hoping to allow doctors remote viewing and collaboration of patient
>x-rays and other information to provide expert diagnosis and analysis to
>combat the SARS crisis.
>
>The group from Taiwan is committed and excited to assist in this endeavor
>(they had a long night on their Saturday night, 4-5am, and then were back up
>talking with us in US 4-5 hours later).
>
>The Argonne Futures Lab group is working to get them up and running.  We
>will keep the community posted if there is anything that needs to be done.
>
>We appreciate everyone's concerns and willingness to help.
>-------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
>
>We also learned something about the size of the task. For diagnosis,
>treatment follow up and research, they are plannning on dong daily Xrays for
>30 days of about 3000 patients. Each Xray is about 1MB, so there is a need
>for a lot of storage. The San Diego team is helping with technology advice
>from their telescience portal (https://gridport.npaci.edu/Telescience/) that
>uses the SRB software for remote storage.
>
>Tom Uram has been busy this weekend working on AG 2.0 installation for the
>machines in Taiwan.
>
>The state of AG there is that they have inSORS servers and software and are
>trying to decide just how to best deploy AG technology (AG 1.2 or AG 2.0) to
>the hospitals.
>
>More as we learn about it.
>
>Terry

Janet I. Thot-Thompson
Associate Director
Alliance Center for Collaboration, Education, Science and Software (ACCESS)
National Center for Supercomputing Applications
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
www.ncsa.uiuc.edu

Executive Director
Multi-Sector Crisis Management Consortium
www.mscmc.org

Ballston Metro Center Office Tower
Suite 800
901 North Stuart Street
Arlington, Virginia 22203
www.accesscenterdc.org

1 703.248.0072
1 703.248.0100(fax)
email: jtt at ncsa.uiuc.edu

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